Security at sea is a far smaller problem than it's going to be for people living on land in a serious breakdown of law and order.

The ocean is vast. People forget that sometimes I think. I've been at sea for weeks at a time without so much as seeing another ship on the distant horizon. It would be very, very easy for me to vanish into deep water and it would be almost impossible for anyone to find me, even in the very unlikely event that anyone would be actively searching for a guy on a sailboat somewhere in the world.

You've reminded me here of the true story of a Nazi sub that was unaccounted for from 1945 to 1946. When germany lost, that sub slipped away and persevered in stealth for a solid year before turning up somewhere and surrendering. (I think their engines were failing or something.)

"We've got provisions and lots of beer. The key word is survival on the new frontier." --Steely Dan 1983

"... it doesn’t really matter who is removing your civil liberties, whether it is being done by a democratic government, a kleptocracy, a dictatorship or even the green police. When your civil rights are gone, they’re gone, and you really are in trouble, no matter how good the cause." --UK journalist Anthony Harrington, "Peak Oil and Collapse Scenarios," QFinance, September, 2011

Our parents used to say, "Don't worry, the government will take care of it."And now our kids say, "Don't worry, the government will take care of us."

What a boat gives me is the option to get out of North America and find a place to weather the storm as a refugee. This is a time-tested method of ensuring my family's survival.

I see many benefits to your chosen bugout vehicle and I also see plenty of potential problems - no different than any bugout strategy or vehicle. I have no intention of leaving North America (Mexico, Caribbean, US, or Canada) as I don't seriously consider any scenario that would cause me to leave North America by boat, plane, or any other means. If things here at home were so bad that you needed to leave North America, then imagine how bad they would be in other places in the world.

So I am wondering what sort of situations you see this being a viable type of scenario? At what point to you go and stay?

Your comfort level with this lifestyle and mode of transportation makes this a viable strategy for you and certainly many others. It's a fun topic for me to read about and I appreciate the banter. Myself, I have some experience boating and sailing and I love the ocean but for my family this is not an option under consideration.

I see many benefits to your chosen bugout vehicle and I also see plenty of potential problems - no different than any bugout strategy or vehicle. I have no intention of leaving North America (Mexico, Caribbean, US, or Canada) as I don't seriously consider any scenario that would cause me to leave North America by boat, plane, or any other means. If things here at home were so bad that you needed to leave North America, then imagine how bad they would be in other places in the world.

So I am wondering what sort of situations you see this being a viable type of scenario? At what point to you go and stay?

Your comfort level with this lifestyle and mode of transportation makes this a viable strategy for you and certainly many others. It's a fun topic for me to read about and I appreciate the banter. Myself, I have some experience boating and sailing and I love the ocean but for my family this is not an option under consideration.

I would leave and not come back if things got violent here to the point that my family was in any real physical security risk for any kind of protracted period of time. My boat is also my retirement plan, if the S doesn't hit the F after all - if bad things happen, I go to live on the boat. If bad things don't happen, I go to live on the boat, after my wife retires, and in the mean time I use it over the summer and on long holidays as recreation.

So having it serves more than one purpose in the overall way I plan to live my life.

Also, if there was a shortage of food. As I've said, I'm more comfortable harvesting food from the sea than I am with gardening, so ifit comes to producing your own, I'm going with my strength and my preferred diet. Certainly if we were having trouble getting food for whatever reason, we'd put out to sea. Every time I've stayed on the boat for a long time I've ended up having to throw away fish and lobster because we harvest more than the crew can consume before it goes bad. Usually by an almost 2:1 ratio.

I like seafood too. I have sportfished from Ketchican AK south to Cabo San Lucas MX. I recommend coming up with a method of preserving some of that bounty while you are out to sea and practicing at it. Plenty of days at sea I have been skunked or the weather doesn't allow for fresh fish. I admit I have never dried, smoked, or canned fish in a moving galley, but I'm sure it can be done. Fish drying racks on deck would be effective. Also, you would have a powerful barter commodity if you needed to call at a port during shtf.

I keep scuba gear on the boat and a compressor for refilling tanks. All you do is go down there and grab the buggers. I also keep spearguns on board for taking other stuff when we're in tropical waters. Hogfish. Yum.

I'm thinking, upon reflecting on charger's suggestion, about a portable smoke house. It would be wood fired and I could take it ashore in sections, kind of like one of those little huts that people use when ice fishing. I could set it up on the beach and use it for smoking large quatities of fish at a time, which could later be used on long distance trips where there isn't time to stop and fish, or used for barter in port.

Problem is I don't know anything about smoking or smokehouses. So that's something I'm going to put on my list of things to learn this year - how to smoke fish in a smokehouse, and I'm going to make it a goal to design and construct a portable smokehouse that I can carry on the boat.

There are a lot of reasonably priced propane and electric smokers available on the market (Amazon is a good place to see several makes and models). Maybe start your smoking adventures with one of those and progress to a breakdown version of a wood fired model?

My initial thought was that you were painting it as too rosy of a picture. After all, you are doing the same thing as someone that has a land based BOL, making the boat your single escape plan. Granted, with the boat you can move to a less threatening location. But it is still putting all the eggs into one basket.

However, it sounds like you really have this figured out. In my opinion, it will not get so bad in the U.S. that I would feel the need to leave the country. But since you have this planned as your retirement property and make use of it in the Summer, it sounds like it would work just fine.

For the smoking, how about picking up a cheap Brinkman smoker from Home Depot to practice? The regular price is only about $60. I don't do any smoking, but a coworker does. It isn't difficult, but the first couple of batches didn't turn out as well as he would have liked.

I'll add that if the worst does happen and you would bug out of the country on the boat, I would think that it would be a fairly large target for pirates any time you are within sight of land. After all, if people are starving and see your sails on the horizon, they will likely think that's the place to go. So hopefully you will have your security systems in place.

You've reminded me here of the true story of a Nazi sub that was unaccounted for from 1945 to 1946. When germany lost, that sub slipped away and persevered in stealth for a solid year before turning up somewhere and surrendering. (I think their engines were failing or something.)

Here's the sub, it was U-977. It wasn't an entire year of being on the lam, it was only 6 months before they finally surrendered.

"We've got provisions and lots of beer. The key word is survival on the new frontier." --Steely Dan 1983

"... it doesn’t really matter who is removing your civil liberties, whether it is being done by a democratic government, a kleptocracy, a dictatorship or even the green police. When your civil rights are gone, they’re gone, and you really are in trouble, no matter how good the cause." --UK journalist Anthony Harrington, "Peak Oil and Collapse Scenarios," QFinance, September, 2011

Our parents used to say, "Don't worry, the government will take care of it."And now our kids say, "Don't worry, the government will take care of us."

In my opinion, it will not get so bad in the U.S. that I would feel the need to leave the country. But since you have this planned as your retirement property and make use of it in the Summer, it sounds like it would work just fine.

I tend to disagree with your premise there, respectfully of course. The US is big enough and most SHTF scenarios are random enough that you simply can't avoid a natural disaster or pandemic possibility, regardless of your BOL/BOV situation. Likewise, while we are nominally free and any economic slide is likely to effect any other developed country just as badly or worse than the US, I don't think you can say with any confidence that a tyrannical government (either swiftly imposed or a gradual progression) or a huge economic shift isn't a real possibility. If the austerity measures being imposed in Europe by the ECB are any indication of how this will go, the outlook of the State's relationships with the Fed, and therefore the everyday worker's cost of living, is dismal indeed.

There are a lot of people who have already made this distinction, choosing to make their lives elsewhere while they can. Granted, most of them aren't getting to a spot with any better outlooks, but there are certainly places where they feel they can conduct business and live with more freedom and less threat. Places where paying tens of thousands in taxes to get a bunch of un-needed and un-wanted services has been replaced with a few hundred in the right pocket and a friendly relationship with a local official; where medical facilities may be lacking but you can pay for a doctor's visit and a prescription for the cost of a couple meals; where petty corruption is preferable to wholesale corruption.

In fact, I'd be very curious to hear cptd's list of possible destinations outside the US. I'm assuming at least a handful are Caribbean islands that most would consider third-world (especially without tourist dollars), and a couple of them are probably countries that at first glance would seem totalitarian. I'm not sure how comfortable he'd be planning on a destination further than say, Brazil, with that boat and crew, but I'd be willing to bet he's got at least a couple additional spots that would be WAY off most our radars.

« Last Edit: November 27, 2012, 08:33:44 AM by MTUCache »

Logged

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835)

"I worry about the effects on the long-run stability and efficiency of our financial system if the Fed attempts to substitute its judgments for those of the market. Such a regime would only increase the unhealthy tendency of investors to pay more attention to rumors about policymakers' attitudes than to the economic fundamentals that by rights should determine the allocation of capital." - Ben Bernanke, "Asset-Price 'Bubbles' and Monetary Policy" (October 15, 2002) i.e., Debacle + Irony = FED

"We've got provisions and lots of beer. The key word is survival on the new frontier." --Steely Dan 1983

"... it doesn’t really matter who is removing your civil liberties, whether it is being done by a democratic government, a kleptocracy, a dictatorship or even the green police. When your civil rights are gone, they’re gone, and you really are in trouble, no matter how good the cause." --UK journalist Anthony Harrington, "Peak Oil and Collapse Scenarios," QFinance, September, 2011

Our parents used to say, "Don't worry, the government will take care of it."And now our kids say, "Don't worry, the government will take care of us."

Well I have to admit, Cptd really got my brain juices flowing with this. I'd like to start by apologizing for chastising him in what probably seemed a flippant way. It probably seemed that way because it was. I was being a jerk. Then I thought about it more. Why wouldn't I want another option of keeping my family safe?

Where I live there is a river with boat access about 2 miles away. That river takes me to the Gulf Coast. Hypothetically, I could load up a smaller motorboat (around 25 feet) and cruise all the way to a marina where our open water vessel could be waiting for us at a marina. This is obviously just the basic idea. I'd need to prepare it all, get A LOT more experience on open water sailing, and the most difficult part.....convincing my wife (ouch).

Maybe this could be my "mid-life crisis" that replaces a Harley or Corvette. "Honey, I've always wanted to take up sailing!" In our State the 25 foot motorboat and even the larger vessels can be had for pennies on the dollar. This economy has really done a number on that industry.

Now to truly show my noob status, I assume there is a licensing process for any boats larger than "X" feet. Is this something that requires logged hours? Where do I even start? Thank you Cptd!

"One of these centuries, the brutes, private or public, who believe that they can rule their betters by force, will learn the lesson of what happens when brute force encounters mind and force."— Ragnar Danneskjöld, from Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)

What I'm about to say has no roots at all in personal experience. Just real life conversations I have overheard, stuff I have read, and message forum stuff elsewhere that I have lurked through. My uncle in particular is a retired game warden. He did river patrol duty almost every day, every summer, aboard an official Massachusettts Environmental Police Boat on the Connecticut River here in Massachusetts. And his patrol range ran from one dam up in the north down to the next dam down in the south. While it wasn't a terribly long stretch of river, he was never replaced by other officers simply because no other officers had the river experence he did. He KNEW that river, and his commander knew that trying to train another officer in that knowledge wasn't a three-day, crash coarse kind of a thing.

Flippy, this is SOO totally not directed at you. This is merely a comment I am making as I witness some folks in this thread getting turned on to the idea of a nautical bug-out. If anything, Flippy, try and convince your wife that this "hobby" is actually a needful self-education which will only be serviced by as much applied time as possible.

Sailing a boat down a river is not as effortless as driving a car down a US highway. A US highway is a pretty straightforward avenue of transit, intensely engineerd with safety in mind, graded to a pristine smoothness, and clearly marked with convenient lines which glow in the dark for us. They might as well have built it with handrails --or maybe the guardrails on the sides count as exactly that. Any idiot can--and does--drive down a US highway.

A river, on the other hand, is something you need to naviagte mutliple times with extreme caution before you can actually get a feel for it. And any given river can covertly change from one day to the next. A submerged log might suddenly be hidden just below the surface in a spot where there was never one before.

In short, I don't think anyone can just grab a map whch incidentally has a river indicated on it and imagine he can jump in a boat and tear-ass down stream as readilly as he could jump in a convertible and tear-ass down a highway. "I've got a map, see? I can get from Point A to Point B if I just stick with this river."

Rivers don't have handrails. Boating is a phenomenally intricate skill, and it's normal for the practice of it to be fraught with hazards and dangerous surprises.

You need to "know" a river. And so if a true SHTF were to arise, anyone who attempts a "nautical bug-out" will need to already "know" the lakes and rivers and sea ports which they hope will be their avenues of escape.

As I said before, I envy anyone who has these skills and experiences already under their belt. It takes a lifetime for any one individual to build up such intimate knowledge of a waterway/seaway. And there's no shortcut to gaining that knowledge. Either you have spent time afloat on that body of water, or you haven't. And I deeply regret not only the knowledge that has been lost over the past 3 generations, but also the educational opportunities that have been lost as far as young people everywhere who have never set foot on a boat because they are too busy driving a car or playing games on the internet. Lot of good World of Warcraft will do them if a true crisis arises and they suddenly find their only option of escape is their now-dead cousin's boat, and yet they not only don't understand the river they suddenly need to sail down, they don't even know how to steer the stupid boat nor even turn the ignition on.

Lesson: get the boating experience NOW while the gettin's good. If a true SHTF arises, your nautical skills will only be as good as your nautical experience.

"We've got provisions and lots of beer. The key word is survival on the new frontier." --Steely Dan 1983

"... it doesn’t really matter who is removing your civil liberties, whether it is being done by a democratic government, a kleptocracy, a dictatorship or even the green police. When your civil rights are gone, they’re gone, and you really are in trouble, no matter how good the cause." --UK journalist Anthony Harrington, "Peak Oil and Collapse Scenarios," QFinance, September, 2011

Our parents used to say, "Don't worry, the government will take care of it."And now our kids say, "Don't worry, the government will take care of us."

I've always had a desire for this type of lifestyle lurking on the back burner of my mind, but there are some significant barriers to entry for someone, like myself, who is totally uninitiated, both in terms of money, skills, time, and family obligations.

I've frequently heard owners say things like, "A boat is a wood-lined hole in the water, into which you throw money." How true is that statement and does it differ significantly if the boat is your home?

What's the estimated dollar cost to enter and maintain a 90' bugout-boat lifestyle, and how much time does it take to become reasonably competent in handling and navigating a vessel like this?

Logged

In times of change learners inherit the earth and the learned find themselves equipped for a world that no longer exists. Eric Hoffer

Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities. Voltaire

Problem is I don't know anything about smoking or smokehouses. So that's something I'm going to put on my list of things to learn this year - how to smoke fish in a smokehouse, and I'm going to make it a goal to design and construct a portable smokehouse that I can carry on the boat.

There are propane smokers on the market and you will be carrying propane already. These could be used on deck if needed. I'm also working on a very simple wood smoking system that would be useable on a beach. I will be working on some detailed threads on curing and smoking fish and meat early next year.

The pertinent part comes at about 00:45:30 when Orlov starts to talk about his choice of living permanently on a boat. He studied the current financial dilemma faced by most middle class Americans (he calls it the "Iron Triangle" which is a three-way trap between your home, your job, and your car) and decided the best way to escape from the imprisonment of that paradigm was to live full time on a boat.

RUPPERT: What have you learned living on a sailboat and travelling up and down the Eastern Seaboard and living without a car?

ORLOV: Well, basically there's something I call the "Iron Triangle" in the United States which is: you need a place to live, so that's a house. And you can't get to the house without a car. And then to pay for the two of them, you need a job. You see, you have the house-car-job iron triangle. And you can't get rid of any one of them. I decided to escape the whole system by moving onto a boat....

RUPPERT: How big is your boat?

ORLOV: It's a 32-footer. It's a reasonable-sized boat.... Once it's set up it's really like a cradle or cocoon. It's perfect. You've got the right combination of ingredients there. But then, on top of that it's got an independent power supply; it's got an independent water supply from filtered rain water; it's got an independent source of propulsion from the sails. I can do all the maintenance on it. There's absolutely no regulation really of the sort that homeowners have to deal with from zoning from codes --all that sort of stuff-- it just doesn't exist. For instance, I don't have to get a permit to install a wind generator on a mast, I can just go ahead and do it....

"We've got provisions and lots of beer. The key word is survival on the new frontier." --Steely Dan 1983

"... it doesn’t really matter who is removing your civil liberties, whether it is being done by a democratic government, a kleptocracy, a dictatorship or even the green police. When your civil rights are gone, they’re gone, and you really are in trouble, no matter how good the cause." --UK journalist Anthony Harrington, "Peak Oil and Collapse Scenarios," QFinance, September, 2011

Our parents used to say, "Don't worry, the government will take care of it."And now our kids say, "Don't worry, the government will take care of us."

I suspect living on a boat is a lot like my time living in a 21' travel trailer, except when I got fed up with been cooped up I could go for a walk.

My family had boats when I was a kid and we took some week-long vacations in larger rented boats. Personally, I wouldn't be comfortable in the open ocean far from shore, but island hopping in the San Juans would be very appealing. Of course, I'm sure with more experience I might be more comfortable with getting further away from safe harbors.

Logged

"There are things that you don't question when your home always smells like baking bread." From The Hunger Games

“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare" James Madison

Someone hit the nail on the head when they suggested that petty corruption is the rule of the day.

That's how most of the world rolls. WHen I was in college I had a girlfriend from Romania. We got pulled over for speeding once and I had to quickly stop her from trying to bribe the cop, and she was genuinely confused by the whole thing.

Laziness and apathy are far, far, far more common than anything else, and even in the nastiest, most totalitarian states, the reality is that down at the level of the local officials that you're going to have contact with, nobody wants trouble. For one thing, it's a lot of work to haul someone off to prison and impound their boat; that involves doing more than sticking out your hand and asking for some money. And they don't get anything out of the deal personally. What the harbormasters and pilot boat captains want is a small bribe.

Understand that if you go into port, they're going to do a safety inspection of some kind and they're going to find something wrong with your boat (real or not). What you need to remember is that when it comes to survival for oneself and one's family, people use whatever they have. A harbormaster has authority to do this kind of thing. THat's the resource that they have - authority. What they want from you is a bribe, and when they get it they send you on your merry way.

My dad was a master at these kinds of negotiations and we went to some pretty ridiculous places and never had any real trouble. It helps to speak another language (any other language but English will do) and to have your vessel registered someplace else (mine is registered in Belize) because if they find out you're an American you can expect a surcharge.

Even with the Muslim Brotherhood calling the shots in Egypt, I wouldn't be afraid to navigate the Suez Canal as long as I had a couple hundred bucks or a handful of silver coins. The pilot boat captains don't care who you are or whether you worship Jesus, Allah, or the Great Green Potato God. They just want to take home enough money at the end of the day to feed their families.

As for things like medical care, I might be selective about where I went if I had cancer, but penicillin is penicillin. When I was 16 I got a hallacious upper respiratory infection and my dad put into port in Viet f-ing Nam. Keep in mind that my Dad was a Marine Corps veteran who had fought there a few decades before. He paid the harbor master ten bucks and I went ashore with a twenty spot. I came back with antibiotics and two chickens; I'm not sure the doctor knew a butthole from an elbow, but treating an upper respiratory infection is not exactly rocket science, and I'm pretty sure that even with good insurance it would be difficult to get a doctor's visit, antibiotics, and two chickens in the United States for twenty bucks.

That doctor also made a spirited attempt to sell me a girl that I think was his niece but sexual slavery ain't the way we rolled.

Piracy is a problem in lawless places like the horn of africa but i dont see it plagueing asia or the Pacific. That's China's domain and the Chinese are prepping for americas crisis. In fact there is a good chance that China will choose how and when America's SHTF scenario goes down. They may very well precipitate it. They pretty much have our nuts in an economic lock box at this point and if they want to ruin us they can at any time.

There are a lot of countries that still get most of their needs from within and it is a uniquely american point of view that the world is toast without us. If a place gets its energy either at home or by import from someplace other than the middle east, grows most of its own food, and imports its manufactured good from China, that place will not suffer appreciably from a collapse here in the US. That describes most of the world. We export little, import everything, buy on credit. We will have a much harder time than many other places and we did it to ourselves.

One thing to keep in mind, a lesson that I can pass on from my experiences in other countries, is that probably if you get something like runaway inflation, your dealings with local authorities here in the states will, over time, grow to more closely resemble what I'm going to be doing at sea. People who need to feed their families are going to use whatever they have available to do that. I know a cop, sort of a friend (and sort of not) who lives paycheck to paycheck and is deeply in debt. Food wouldn't probably need to disappear for guys like him to become a problem. It would just need to get really expensive, because he's already barely able to paythe bills. In a real SHTF scenario with runaway inflation where he couldn't keep his family fed, it would probably be only a matter of time before he realied that while he didn't prepare for the event, he does have resources for feeding his family. He has a gun, a badge, a car with fancy blue lights, and authority. All over the world, that combination equals a pretty good source of income from bribes. So you may not have to deal with just gangs taking your food. You're also going to have to reckon with corrupt local cops who are desperate to feed their own families. There's no shortage of people with some kind of badge and some kind of authority in this country, and they can always find a law that you are breaking or a code that you are violating and can make life miserable if you don't make them happy. And shooting them is a good way to find yourself strapped to a gurney with a needle in your arm, at least in most places.

The pertinent part comes at about 00:45:30 when Orlov starts to talk about his choice of living permanently on a boat. He studied the current financial dilemma faced by most middle class Americans (he calls it the "Iron Triangle" which is a three-way trap between your home, your job, and your car) and decided the best way to escape from the imprisonment of that paradigm was to live full time on a boat.

RUPPERT: What have you learned living on a sailboat and travelling up and down the Eastern Seaboard and living without a car?

ORLOV: Well, basically there's something I call the "Iron Triangle" in the United States which is: you need a place to live, so that's a house. And you can't get to the house without a car. And then to pay for the two of them, you need a job. You see, you have the house-car-job iron triangle. And you can't get rid of any one of them. I decided to escape the whole system by moving onto a boat....

RUPPERT: How big is your boat?

ORLOV: It's a 32-footer. It's a reasonable-sized boat.... Once it's set up it's really like a cradle or cocoon. It's perfect. You've got the right combination of ingredients there. But then, on top of that it's got an independent power supply; it's got an independent water supply from filtered rain water; it's got an independent source of propulsion from the sails. I can do all the maintenance on it. There's absolutely no regulation really of the sort that homeowners have to deal with from zoning from codes --all that sort of stuff-- it just doesn't exist. For instance, I don't have to get a permit to install a wind generator on a mast, I can just go ahead and do it....

That's all very true as well. And someone else asked about licensning. That all depends on whether you take paying customers on board. I have a master's license so I can do that legally if I want to, but without it I could still pilot the boat, I just couldn't do it for any commercial purpose.

Keep in mind that handling a boat as big as mine takes considerable training and experience, and I would not reccomment even trying it without that.

Sailing a boat down a river is not as effortless as driving a car down a US highway. A US highway is a pretty straightforward avenue of transit, intensely engineerd with safety in mind, graded to a pristine smoothness, and clearly marked with convenient lines which glow in the dark for us. They might as well have built it with handrails --or maybe the guardrails on the sides count as exactly that. Any idiot can--and does--drive down a US highway.

A boat also does not steer like a car. I have limited experience on small boats with and without engines, and I can't imagine it would be much easier with larger boats.

But since you have this planned as your retirement property and make use of it in the Summer, it sounds like it would work just fine.

This is the reason that your idea can actually work. Prepping isn't as effective if you don't make it a lifestyle. Practicing what you preach is imperative, so the fact that you are already living that lifestyle to a degree and plan on making it a fulltime lifestyle at one point is probably the key factor to your success.

Someone hit the nail on the head when they suggested that petty corruption is the rule of the day.

I find it hard to believe that if things truly go far enough downhill that you believe you are forced to leave the US for bluer waters that things won't also get worse in other countries as well. Sure, most people around the world won't feel a thing if the US goes under because they are already living at a low enough level that it won't have any effect, but I would think that corrupt port officials or local politicians would be looking to take advantage of American citizens that no longer have any recourse with the power of the US government behind them. Not that there is a lot of recourse now, but how many petty tyrants don't do something to US citizens simply for fear of some kind of potential recourse. With a powerless US government, I would think that many of them would be looking to take advantage of Americans.

After all, you are doing the same thing as someone that has a land based BOL, making the boat your single escape plan. Granted, with the boat you can move to a less threatening location. But it is still putting all the eggs into one basket.

Agree completely. Even though many of us may have BOL's, in the end we are hoping that the method we choose is the one that helps to ensure our survival. Whatever happens, good luck.

Logged

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” Robert Heinlein

"There's this new thing called Situational Awareness!" Sterling Archer

I love this idea and concept. Even threw it out to the wife who was onboard. “what do you think if we get a boat as a SHTF scenario”. She was cool with the idea and sold. We could go anywhere. US has issues, head south or across the ocean. There were no border crossings etc. Had her sold on getting classes and even a vacation to practice. Then she asked, don’t you get motion sick? Well there went that idea. That and we live nowhere near water for the moment.

But I love this thread and I am posting to keep updated on the discussion.

We are all relying on our own foresight. Like I've said, for me, this made the most sense because it deployed my strengths and experience for me. I have no experience growing stuff in a garden and the idea of learning is unappealing to me to say the least. My hunting skills are very rudimentary and again, it's not something I find interesting, so I'm not inclined to spend my time gaining practice that way. Whatever you do, it needs to take into account what you're already good at, if that's possible.

As for officials in other places taking advantage, that's something you put yourself at the mercy of here at home, too. You're always at the mercy of "officials" whether you're at home or abroad, and in a SHTF scenario, who is to say that any number of domestic officials won't turn bad in an effort to put food on their own tables? Like I've said, there is no shortage of "officials" in the US. Peoplewith some kind of badge, gun, and authority. You've got the police, the sheriff, the state troopers. You've got the DEA, the ATF, and the FBI. You've got game wardens, you've got game wardens, you've got park rangers - all of these people. That's a lot of people, and some (not all but some) are not going to be any better prepared than the rest of society, and when they realize that they can get food or money by extracting bribes from people, this place won't look much different than the rest of the world. So I don't see being at the mercy of the local harbormaster as anything I would be avoiding by staying in the US. Just exchange him for any number of greedy officials that could come knocking.

What I do have is the advantage of being able to not go back to a certain place if the corruption costs me too much. If you're stuck here and you get a particularly corrupt police force in your neighborhood you are going to have a real problem to contend with. You can't exactly pick up a homestead and transport it to a new jurisdiction .

There are limiting factors to everyone's plans, and there is no way for anyone to completely insulate themselves against all possible outcomes. I've done the best I can and that's all any of us can do. What I'm making my decisions on is the premise that, in a SHTF scenario, life here in the states will not be in any appreciable way better than life in any number of other places. That being the case, I have no reason to stay. If its your assessment that life will be better for you here, then you would not want to do as I am planning.

What I'm making my decisions on is the premise that, in a SHTF scenario, life here in the states will not be in any appreciable way better than life in any number of other places. That being the case, I have no reason to stay. If its your assessment that life will be better for you here, then you would not want to do as I am planning.

I tend to think that if life here declines, it will decline all over the world. Maybe I am overstating our importance to the rest of the planet, but we are the worlds police as well as a significant portion of the worlds economy. If our military and monetary support for other countries disappears, then they will degenerate as well. Currently, I believe that the US is one of the best places in the world to live. I guess I also believe that even if the SHTF, the rest of the world will degenerate enough that the US will still be one of the best places in the world to live.

Logged

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” Robert Heinlein

"There's this new thing called Situational Awareness!" Sterling Archer

We are all relying on our own foresight. Like I've said, for me, this made the most sense because it deployed my strengths and experience for me. I have no experience growing stuff in a garden and the idea of learning is unappealing to me to say the least. My hunting skills are very rudimentary and again, it's not something I find interesting, so I'm not inclined to spend my time gaining practice that way. Whatever you do, it needs to take into account what you're already good at, if that's possible.

At some point, you will need food other than fish, clams and crab. You may want to look into sprouting. Lots of nutrition in a small package. You could also store an awful lot of sprouting seed on that boat. Of course you will need to rotate the seed out, so you would need to start incorporating sprouts into daily life.

At some point, you will need food other than fish, clams and crab. You may want to look into sprouting. Lots of nutrition in a small package. You could also store an awful lot of sprouting seed on that boat. Of course you will need to rotate the seed out, so you would need to start incorporating sprouts into daily life.

Don't forget the Vit C. Don't want scurvy!

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"In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all - security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again."- Edward Gibbon

I tend to think that if life here declines, it will decline all over the world. Maybe I am overstating our importance to the rest of the planet, but we are the worlds police as well as a significant portion of the worlds economy. If our military and monetary support for other countries disappears, then they will degenerate as well. Currently, I believe that the US is one of the best places in the world to live. I guess I also believe that even if the SHTF, the rest of the world will degenerate enough that the US will still be one of the best places in the world to live.

There are a lot of places that don't get monetary or military support from us and do just fine. It's a uniquely American point of view that we are so important to the rest of the world, that somehow the United States is propping everyone else up. I think it's sort of a national delusion that we have. It's a form of denial. We want to believe so badly that this place is so great, and maybe it once was - I'm not doubting that. But things change. At some point you have to wake up and accept reality.

The reality is that we are 16T in debt to the rest of the world, not the other way around. We're going to be working that off for a long time. I'd rather not be a part of that.

Alternative food is something to think about, although rather than trying to grow it on board I'm relying on trading for it at port. It's hard for me to imagine the open air markets in Bangladesh closing up because of a crisis in the United States. Walmart might close but the parts of the world that don't roll that way will be open for business and life will go on. And it will be just as cheap as it always has been.

The real trick is having the resources to barter. You have to have some kind of gig going to bring in either money or something else of value that you can exchange for the things that you need that you can't get from the sea because you cant put an Orange orchard on your boat.

My dad always had some kind of scheme. Some of them worked and some of them didn't. There was never just one thing that he relied on. He made money by trading currencies and precious metals, playing different world markets against each other. Sometimes we took passengers on board and offered safe passage from here to there. Dad was selective about who he took on board (you need to be) but he made good money this way.

There are a lot of places that don't get monetary or military support from us and do just fine. It's a uniquely American point of view that we are so important to the rest of the world, that somehow the United States is propping everyone else up. I think it's sort of a national delusion that we have. It's a form of denial. We want to believe so badly that this place is so great, and maybe it once was - I'm not doubting that. But things change. At some point you have to wake up and accept reality.

The reality is that we are 16T in debt to the rest of the world, not the other way around. We're going to be working that off for a long time. I'd rather not be a part of that.

I really like the idea of taking to the oceans, I love to sail and think its a great plan for many. I really want to get a sailing catamaran (maybe with a M2HB mounted on the foredeck for pirates... or not ) I really like he Lagoon 380 for my purposes, not just when shtf but for those fun summers.

The 16T debt is not primarily to the rest of the world, most of it is held by our own citizens, which doesn't diminish the problem. But we are in fact important to the rest of the world, not necessarily because of aid, but because we support china and europe by buying their stuff, in the same way they do for us. Europe and Asia are extremely important to the US, and vice versa. Africa and South america might remain nearly the same without us. Its not just that we are different, but a critical part. If life in europe declines, it will spread... so I think we need to consider our impact,

BUT, there are many parts of the world that do not have advanced economies dependent on us. Many of them are beautiful with wonderful climates... and reachable by boat.

I really like the idea of taking to the oceans, I love to sail and think its a great plan for many. I really want to get a sailing catamaran (maybe with a M2HB mounted on the foredeck for pirates... or not ) I really like he Lagoon 380 for my purposes, not just when shtf but for those fun summers.

The 16T debt is not primarily to the rest of the world, most of it is held by our own citizens, which doesn't diminish the problem. But we are in fact important to the rest of the world, not necessarily because of aid, but because we support china and europe by buying their stuff, in the same way they do for us. Europe and Asia are extremely important to the US, and vice versa. Africa and South america might remain nearly the same without us. Its not just that we are different, but a critical part. If life in europe declines, it will spread... so I think we need to consider our impact,

BUT, there are many parts of the world that do not have advanced economies dependent on us. Many of them are beautiful with wonderful climates... and reachable by boat.

What I have learned is that there are major powers and then there's everyone else. The major powers of the world have intertwined economies that to some degree effect each other; but most of the world doesn't work that way. A US collapse will hurt major world players who depend on trade with us in some form or fashion, but the farmers markets in the so-called developing world will not close. They won't even feel a US collapse as a hiccup. They might not even know about it, as isolated as some of these places are from contact with America.

Fine with me. I don't really like Europe anyway. Too much marijuana and, in the case of France, too much on the cigarrettes.

What I have learned is that there are major powers and then there's everyone else. The major powers of the world have intertwined economies that to some degree effect each other; but most of the world doesn't work that way. A US collapse will hurt major world players who depend on trade with us in some form or fashion, but the farmers markets in the so-called developing world will not close. They won't even feel a US collapse as a hiccup. They might not even know about it, as isolated as some of these places are from contact with America.

I agree wholeheartedly. The illusion here in the US that if we didn't get in everybody's business that it would stop working is a fallacy we've created in the last 60 years so we can stay on that high we had coming off WW2.

Life in America is going to change. We've all accepted that. It's why we're here at TSP. We don't always agree on how it's going to change, when, or why, but I think we all see a future where places look a lot more like developing nations rather than techno-marvel Disney World's.

Life in India for 99% of its inhabitants has progressed slowly over the last 300 years. Before the British got there and after they left.Life in Roman Europe for 99% of its inhabitants looked the same for 500 years, whether their emperor was in Rome, Constantinople, etc...

We've gotten pulled upwards quickly to the top of the pyramid, but when the top of that pyramid goes away and the power vacuum gets replaced with something new it's not like the whole thing comes crashing down. Sure, the people near the top (US, Europe) feel it, but the people below that barely notice a difference. I think we'll all quickly come to the realization that we've been serfs all along, we just borrowed enough money to pretend like we were rich.

Cptd, I'm still intensely curious as to your list of possible destinations and pros/cons (if you're willing to share them).I know Argentina is big on many expat lists, and Mexico was until recently. Personally, I'd be interested in finding out more about the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. Say all you like about third-world facilities and uneducated people, but with just a little bit of money those people can show you how to live!

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"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835)

"I worry about the effects on the long-run stability and efficiency of our financial system if the Fed attempts to substitute its judgments for those of the market. Such a regime would only increase the unhealthy tendency of investors to pay more attention to rumors about policymakers' attitudes than to the economic fundamentals that by rights should determine the allocation of capital." - Ben Bernanke, "Asset-Price 'Bubbles' and Monetary Policy" (October 15, 2002) i.e., Debacle + Irony = FED